


To Be Alone With You

by kyoh_ru



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Comfort, Derealization, Dissociation, Happy Ending, M/M, No beta we kayak like Tim, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period (The Magnus Archives), or maybe he did this before and the lonely just added some flavor who knows, unreality, yeah martin is maybe a little messed up from the lonely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:47:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28768806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyoh_ru/pseuds/kyoh_ru
Summary: Martin feels derealization. Jon helps.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 6
Kudos: 58





	To Be Alone With You

**Author's Note:**

> wow two fics in one night? crazy! anyway to show that i can project onto both of these dudes i wrote a derealization martin fic. please let me know what you think, and sorry if its a little sloppy, i wrote it when i was (youll never guess) derealized! basically i just think that martin would 100% feel this after the lonely and i felt it important to put down somewhere.
> 
> title is To Be Alone With You by Sufjan Stevens.
> 
> **warning! this fic describes the feeling of derealization/dissociation, in detail, from a third person pov. there are large discussions of unreality and feeling like you and your surroundings do not exist or are slightly off. if this is something that may trigger you, please don't read this fic or proceed with caution. thanks, and enjoy!

Martin knows he’s sitting there.

Martin knows he’s sitting there, on Daisy’s couch, looking into the fire. He can feel himself sitting there, in fact he’s acutely aware of how much space on the couch, and in the room, and in the air he is taking. But none of it is quite… real.

Looking at the flames, he tries to focus his eyes on the base of the fire. On the wood. But his eyes want to go in and out of focus, and the wood just looks fake. The flames coming off of the wood look like paper. They look too sharp and vibrant to be real. He can faintly hear the crackle from inside the fireplace, but those don’t sound real either. They sound too mechanical, too timed and precise and uneven all at once.

He tries to move his head, away from the fireplace, over to the entrance of the hallway. His head moves slow but his eyes move slower, and it takes some effort to get them to focus on the hallway itself and not blur everything together. As soon as he does though, the hallway is dark and void and too much of nothing to possibly be real. He knows Jon is down the hall, recording a statement, but he vaguely wonders if Jon is even there. If the hallway isn’t real, then Jon must not be there.

He shifts his gaze to the small kitchen table, with two chairs sitting slightly askew beside it. He can feel his eyes darting, every-so-minutely, over the table and chairs, as if this will help confirm their realness in his mind. But it does not. They look like a diorama, like if he walked over there and touched them, his hands might go right through. Walking over to them would require him to get up, though, and his eyes and his head and his feet and his body feel so heavy with the weight of being the only real thing in this room. 

Well, he must be the only real thing in this room if he feels heavy, right? Can you feel without being? He looks down at his hands, resting unevenly on his knees, and he supposes they do actually look kind of fake. He slowly lifts one arm, just a few centimeters, and though he knows this action is real, and he took it, and it’s his arm that’s moving, it feels as though he’s just minutely disconnected from it all. As if processing his surroundings was like putting a plug into a wall, but the plug was just barely hanging out and was only able to receive part of the electricity necessary to power it.

He settles his hand down again, once again able to finely experience the sensation of touch, down to every molecule, but feeling like it could all just dissipate at any moment. He lets his eyes stay down-cast, unfocused, turning the world around and in front of him into fuzzy outlines and vague shapes. His glasses are still on, and as he thinks this he is extremely aware of the pads on the bridge of his nose, and the glass in front of his eyes, and how he can’t register if they are real or not, or a part of him or not. 

He takes off the glasses and sets them to his left on the small side table. Immediately this helps with the feeling of unease he got registering their perch on his nose, but the world is cast into an even fuzzier haze. Everything is splitting into double and going in and out of focus. His head hurts and he can’t get his eyes to stay on any one object. He again resolves himself to sitting with his eyes slightly downcast and out of focus on his hands in front of him. Hopefully this feeling wears off, and the ebbing at his brain that nothing is real will fade away, or maybe he will finally fade away enough himself to see just how unreal this world is. 

***

“End recording.” Jonathan says into the tape recorder, and the tape stops. He places the now-read statement into a folder open on his desk, on top of the very small pile of other also-read statements. He closes the folder and puts it in the desk drawer to his left, then closes the much fuller folder to his right and puts it in the corresponding desk drawer. 

He had been getting significantly more tired and disoriented the past couple of days, and after some gentle coaxing from Martin, he was finally convinced that he should read a statement. And admittedly, this completely wiped away the state of fatigue he was in before. He felt, ironically enough, a bit more human again. Getting up from the small desk and stretching, Jon makes his way out of the bedroom door, down the hall, and out into the sitting room. 

“Sorry about that, finally done, I think we can start that cleaning in the bathroom now-” Jon starts to say, but taking a glance at Martin shows him they are not going to be doing that any time soon. Martin is not completely translucent, but not fully whole either. The edges of him look blurry, like they are fading into the background, and he did not make any noise or movement when Jon entered the room. 

“Martin?” Jon quickly moves over to Martin, kneeling down in front of him to try and look him in the eyes. But Martin’s eyes are glossed over and foggy, and his expression is one of complete neutrality. He does not answer Jon.

“Martin, can you hear me?” Jon places a hand on top of Martin’s shoulder, and he startles slightly. “Martin?”

“Oh, hello Jon.” Martin says, eyes still downcast and glazed. 

“Okay, good, Martin,” Jon places his other hand on top of Martin’s, but now Martin is used to the foreign contact, and does not move. “Can you tell me what is happening?”

There is no compulsion behind it, but Jon almost wishes there had been after a few seconds of complete silence. Finally, Martin answers slowly, “Nothing is real, Jon.”

Jon wraps his hand around Martin’s, gripping it as tightly but not uncomfortably as he can. “Yes, yes it is. This is all real. We are in the safehouse in Scotland, on the couch, in front of the fireplace. And we are both here, you and me, Martin, together.” Jon tries to keep his voice soft, and keep the anxiety and worry in his mind at bay.

After a couple of seconds, Martin’s voice sounds again, “Then why don’t they look real. Everything is blurry and vague, but too bright and loud at the same time. It can’t be real.”

Jon lets out a sigh. He’s never been particularly good at dealing with this, with feelings of unreality. But he knows he usually looks for something to ground him, and keep him tethered in place. He moves the hand on Martin’s shoulder to the side of his face, and tilts Martin’s head up to meet his eyes. “If nothing else, Martin, I’m real. I’m real and here in front of you. Touching your hands and your lovely face.”

A quick huff of breath escapes Martin, and the edge of his mouth almost looks like it curls upwards for a second. “But what if neither of us are real. Isn’t it just easier to let yourself fade away and accept that you aren’t real? It’s so much harder to focus and convince yourself the world around you exists, and it doesn’t even work, in the end.” The edges of Martin’s hair start to fade even more, and his eyes seem to be even farther away than he sounds.

Jon moves his hand gripping Martin’s hand to touch the other side of Martin’s cheek, cupping his face gently. He tries to ignore the vague feeling of panic bubbling up inside of him. “You are real. You are right here in front of me. Wearing a navy and green knit jumper with flowers on it, sitting on our couch in our home. It’s about midday, and we were about to clean the bathroom.” He moves his thumbs in very small circles on Martin’s cheeks, hoping the combination of talking and touch will help keep him here. 

Something in Martin’s gaze shifts, and the ends of his hair start to re-appear every so slightly. “You went to read a statement. Down the hall.” His voice is still monotone, but his eyes seem to vaguely be looking for something.

Jon smiles. “Yes. I was just down the hall, but I’ve finished the statement, and now I’m here in front of you, Martin. Martin Blackwood. The man with whom I am very lucky to share a home with. Who I’m very lucky to have sitting right in front of me.”

Martin’s eyes seem to clear of fog, not completely, but mostly. He finally looks into Jon’s eyes. “I’m in front of you.”

Jon’s smile widens, just a little. “You are, you are right in front of me, Martin Blackwood, and you are very real, and very beautiful.” Maybe that last part was a bit cheesy, Jon thinks, but the corners of Martin’s mouth twitch up just a little.

Martin’s hands slowly lift from their positions on his knees, to Jon’s wrists, and holding. Not gripping, but making an effort to stay where they are. “And you are Jonathan Sims. And you are right in front of me, too.”

Jon stops the movements of his thumbs. “Martin, may I join you on the couch?”

Martin smiles. “Yes.”

Making sure not to let go of Martin’s face, Jon stands up, then sits himself just to the right of Martin. Martin’s eyes follow him as he goes. 

“I’m going to remove my hands so I can hug you, is that alright?” Jon asks, meeting Martin’s gaze again. It is even clearer. Martin nods. Jon moves his hands down from Martin’s face, but moves one to the back of Martin’s head, and the other around his stomach. Jon plants a small kiss to Martin’s shoulder, and lightly pets the back of his head.

Martin leans into the touch. He had to move his hands off of Jon’s wrists so Jon could move, so he instead wraps his own arms around Jon and holds. 

After a few minutes of silence, Martin finally speaks again. “Jon, I still don’t feel entirely right, like I’m really here, but thank you for being here with me.”

Jon nods. “Of course Martin, I will stay here as long as it takes.” He emphasizes this with a quick kiss to Martin’s cheek.

Martin sighs, and presses into Jon more, resting his head on Jon’s shoulder. The pressure in his head seems to lift just barely. They sit like this, holding each other, in front of the crackling fireplace, until Martin is whole again.

**Author's Note:**

> tune in next time where i write about more gay podcast characters probably


End file.
